A baby boy has become the first child in Britain to be born using a womb transplanted from a dead donor, reports the BBC.
Grace Bell, who was born without a viable womb, described her little boy, Hugo, now 10-weeks-old, as “simply a miracle”, thanking medical teams in Oxford and London who supported their journey.
The surgeons involved said the birth was a ground-breaking moment, which could give hope to many more women with a similar diagnosis.
The little boy was born at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in west London just before Christmas.
Bell was born without a womb and doesn’t have periods but does have normal ovaries – a condition called MRKH syndrome, which affects one in every 5 000 women in the UK.
At 16, she was told she wouldn’t be able to carry her own child.
To have a baby, she and her partner’s only option was to hope for a womb transplant or go the surrogacy route.
When she received a phone call saying a womb had been donated and a transplant was possible, Bell remembers being really excited. But she was also acutely aware of the donor family’s “incredible gift”, which would enable her to carry and give birth to her own child.
Transplant procedure
The womb transplant operation lasted 10 hours and took place at The Churchill Hospital in Oxford in June 2024, before the couple received IVF treatment some months later – followed by embryo transfer – at The Lister Fertility Clinic in London.
When Hugo was born, Bell said: “It was simply a miracle.”
Her successful womb transplant from a deceased donor is just one of 10 such transplants taking place as part of a UK clinical research trial. Three have already been carried out, but this is the first baby born.
In early 2025, baby Amy was born through the first living womb donation in the UK. Her mother received her older sister’s womb in a transplant operation in January 2023. Her sister had already had two children of her own and had no wish to have more.
Five other womb transplants from close living relatives in the UK are planned.
Hope for women born without a womb
Amy was born at the same London hospital as Hugo. The medical team behind both births has been building towards this moment for many years.
Consultant gynaecologist Professor Richard Smith, from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, started researching womb transplantation more than 25 years ago and was present at Hugo’s birth. He said a huge team of people had been involved in the process, from the transplant operation to the embryo transfer and the delivery itself.
Bell and her partner may decide to have a second baby, after which surgeons will remove the transplanted womb. This is to save her from taking a lifetime of strong drugs to prevent the body's immune system attacking the transplanted organ.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
First UK womb transplant with donated uterus
Successful birth after womb is transplanted from deceased donor